大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by BARBARA COLLINS-NEWING of the 大象传媒 KENT on behalf of ANNAROSA AUTEN and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

I lived in Italy during the war. My sister was 26 and I was 15. My father had died in 1942 and my step mother, Livia, had departed following a row with my sister, Maria Pia. My elder brother, Daniele was away in Mussolini鈥檚 army fighting in Albania. We were on our own. Things were very bad in Italy; the government was unable to feed the population properly and black market was rife.

I learnt the German for 鈥淧lease give me bread鈥� (Bitte geben mich Brot), with the idea of approaching one of the numerous SS in the street and asking for some. I felt terribly nervous about this, but on one occasion I did try it. The soldier smiled whilst looking at me in a bemused way, then he laughed shook his head. I turned and ran off as fast as I could

My sister, who had been working as a secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, lost her job. The Ministry was going to be transferred to Northern Italy, like many other firms as they feared the advance of the Allied forces, who were fighting the Germans in our country from the south and had already advanced as far as Naples. Only male employees were allowed to transfer with their organisation. 鈥淲omen鈥檚 Lib鈥� and 鈥渟exual equality鈥� were about three decades away鈥�!

In Rome people were starving to death and because of this and in order to be closer to my brother who was now a non-commissioned officer in Turin, a town in Piedmont, we decided to try and join him. I had to take my beloved cat Mascherino (pronounced Maskerino) which means Little Mask because of his unusual markings. I could not leave him behind to a fate of slow starvation or even worse ending up in a cooking pot.

After walking a very long way and staying in cheap accommodation we eventually managed to get onboard a cattle train. When it arrived it was full of German soldiers, which was very intimidating. But, I must say they behaved most politely and completely ignored us. We found a corner where we sat on our luggage and then I let Mascherino out of the bag I was carrying him in.

Immediately a transformation came over our fellow passengers, from being stern and martial , they becam animated and good humoured. They smiled and addressed us, although we couldn鈥檛 undestand them. All the while stroking and playing with Mascherino. There they were in their stuffy uniforms, hats and boots behaving like kids. In fact they were very young, no more than 18 or 20 and showing a side of themselves that their tough training had taught them to keep under control. Now thanks to a cat they could, for a little while, express themselves freely.

It didn鈥檛 last for long though, suddenly a sharp command came from the front of the carriage and the platoon instantly regained its stiff self 鈥攃ontrol. Each of the soldiers shouted a number in turn and I realised that it was their roll-call, very organised, very German. I rescued Mascherino and kept him close tome for the rest of the trip.

The three most important things that I learnt from my experiences during the war were:

1. Respect food and never waste any of it.

2. Even in the most hopeless situations never lose faith of surviving. Absurd, inexplicable events do occur sometimes 鈥� we call them miracles.

3. There is a buzz in the fight for survival 鈥� when successful,which despite trauma and degredation it is like no other experience in life.

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